Cheese continues to keep the dairy market moving

These trends are what they are. There is still a lot of uncertainty in the background. Europe is too expensive for the world market and therefore has difficulty exporting. Consumers also have less and less to spend. This should put pressure on dairy prices, but on the other hand, concerns about the persistent drought in large parts of Europe are increasing. Milk supplies are already declining sharply in France and Germany, but these are not the only EU countries that are struggling with this.

Buyers want to hedge
It is not yet possible to say what this will mean for the dairy market in the coming months. It is clear that cheese prices are on the rise for the time being, because retailers and other buyers still want to take extra cover for the short term, but also want to secure their supply for the longer term. This mainly affects the prices for Gouda and Edam cheese, while the Cheddar price is also still fixed. Mozzarella gives up a little ground.

The price of butter also rose slightly this week, just like the price of cream. However, the markets for these products feel uncertain. Prices are still quite high, but it seems difficult to say where things will go in the slightly longer term. Butter stocks are small, smaller than in other years, but the main issue now seems to be how elastic demand will be in the coming months.

The milk powder market is one with two faces. Demand is still good on the internal European market and prices are holding up reasonably well.

Powder market with two faces
In Germany, demand is still between €3800 and €4000 per tonne of skimmed milk powder food. And anyone who thinks that's too expensive should just see, the providers argue. They feel comfortable enough to wait it out for now, especially since their warehouses are far from full yet.
In a number of other countries, including the Netherlands, companies feel more pressure to sell and keep an export channel open, and lower prices are mentioned. Maybe things aren't going well yet, but somewhere this all has to come together again.
The concentrate market may have already made a small advance on this this week, because the price for this semi-product fell sharply.

Yet it is difficult to draw major consequences from this. Skimmed milk concentrate can be used for several purposes: for powder, cheese and fresh production.

Spot milk prices remain broadly stable, although a decline has been recorded in southern Germany. The fact that demand is relatively weak is evident from the fact that prices for the Netherlands and Northern Germany are below factory prices.